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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I I H. A. Carey. J •S" ^ S r I THE FRIENDL Y EDITION. 1 SHAKESPEARE'S) WORKS EDITED BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE. Vol. XX. POEMS. SONNETS. THE FRIENDLY EDITION. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE. ORDER AND CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES. Vol I. VoL 11. Vol. III. VoL IV. Vol. V. Vol. VI. Vol. VII. Vol. VIII. Vol. IX. Vol. X. ( Titus Andronicus. \ Henry VI. Part I. { Henry VI. Part II. \ Hemy VI. Part III. ( Richard III. ( Love's Labour 's Lost {The Comedy of Errors. Two Gentlemen of Verona. {A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Romeo and Juliet. {King John. Richard II. {The Merchant of Venice. The Taming of the Shrew. ( Henry IV. Part I. { Henry IV. Part II. ( Henry V. ( Merry Wives of Windsor. (Twelfth Night ( Much Ado about Nothing. Vol. XL VoL XIL VoL XIIL Vol. XIV. VoL XV. Vol. XVI. VoL XVIL VoL XVIII. VoL XIX. VoL XX. ( As You Like It { Ail *s We]l that Ends WeU. {Measure for Measure. Troilus and Cressida. {Hamlet. Julius Caesar. {Macbeth. Othella {King Lear. Antony and Cleopatra. {Coriolanus. Timon of Athens. {Pericles. The Tempest. iCymbeline. The Winter's Tale. ( Henry VIII. ( The Two Noble Kmsmen. {Poems. Sonnets. Copyright, 1884, by Hakpbr & Brothbss. •* 'l SHAKESPEARE'S VENUS AND ADONIS, LUCRECE, AND OTHER POEMS, Edited, with Notes, BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M., FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. WITH ENGRA VINGS. ((^*^^: NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1884. ENGLISH CLASSICS. Edited BY WM. J. ROLFE, A.M. Illustrated. i6nio, Cloth, 56 cents per volume ; Paper, 40 cents per volume. Shakespeare's Works. The Merchant of Venice. Othello. Julius Caesar. A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Macbeth. Hamlet. Much Ado about Nothing. Romeo and Juliet. As You Like It. The Tempest. Twelfth Night. The Winter's Tale. King John. Richard II. Henry IV Henry IV Henry V. Richard III. Henry VIII. King Lear. Part I. Part II. The Taming of the Shrew. All 's Well that Ends Well. Coriolanus. The Comedy of Errors. Cymbeline. Antony and Cleopatra. Measure for Measiue. Merry Wives of Windsor. Love's Labour *s Lost. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Timon of Athens. Troilus and Cressida. Henry VI. Part I. Henry VI. Part II. Henry VI. Part III. Pericles, Prince of lyre. The Two Noble Kinsmen. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, etc. Sonnets. Titus Andronicus. Goldsmith's Select Poems. Gray's Select Poems Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Atty of the above ivorks will be sent by fttail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price. Copyright, 1883, by Harper & Brothers. PREFACE. Shakespeare's Poenn have generally received less attention from editors and commentators than his plays, and in some editions they are omitted altogether. It has been my aim to treat them with the same thoroughness as the plays. All varia Uctiones likely to be of interest to the student are recorded. The 1599 edition of Vtnus and Adonis is col- lated for the first time, so far as I am aware, though it was discovered some fifteen years ago. Certain of the recent editors do not appear to know of its existence. The text is given without expurgation. The Rape of Lucrece needs none, and the Venus and Adonis (like the sonnets on the same subject in The Passionate Pilf^rim) does not admit of it without being mutilated past recognition. Of course these poems will never be read in schools or " Shakespeare clubs." In The Passionate Pilgrim^ the pieces which are certainly not Shake- speare's are transferred from the text to the Notes, Most of the others are of doubtful authenticity, but I give Shakespeare the benefit — if bene- fit it be^-of the doubt. A Lover's Complaint is generally conceded to be his ; and The Phoenix and the Turtle has, I think, a better claim to be so regarded than anything in The Passionate Pilgrim, These points, however, are more fully discussed in the Notes, 156459 SOm. Ibe boy thai by her ude lay kill'd 1 melted like i vapour friim hei sight, Aod in his blood ihat on the ground lay aroird, A piuple flower apnii^ up, chequer'd with white, ReumbliDg well his pale cheeks and the blood Which ID round drops upoti ttieir *hit«neas stood. (K.nW^.ii65fcJ.) CONTENTS. PAGB Introduction to Shakespeare's Poems 9 I. The History of the Poems 9 II. The Sources of the Poems 14 III. Critical Comments on the Poems 16 VENUS AND ADONIS 41 THE RAPE OF LUCRECE 81 A LOVER'S COMPLAINT 143 THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM 156 THE PHCENIX AND THE TURTLE 163 Notes 167 INTRODUCTION SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. I. THE HISTORY OF THE POEMS. Vmus and Adonis was first published in quarto form, in 1593, with the following tille-page;* Venvs I AND ADONIS | VMa miretur valgus: mihi Jtauus Apollo 1 Pocula Castalia plena minislret aqua. | London | Imprinted by Richard Field, and are to-be sold at | the signe of the white Greyhound in | Paules Church-yard. | 1593- • For this tille-page, as well as for much of the other information we have given concerning the early editions, we are indebted to the "Cam- bridge " ed. lo SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. The book is printed with remarkable accuracy, doubtless from the author's manuscript. A second quarto edition was published in 1594, the title- page of which differs from that of the first only in the date. A third edition in octavo form (like all the subsequent editions) was issued in 1596 from the same printing-office " for lohn Harison." A fourth edition was published in 1599, with the following title-page (as given in Edmonds's reprint) : VENVS I AND ADONi;^. | Vilia mireiur vuigus : mihi flauus Apollo I Focula Castalia plena tninisiret aqua, \ Im- printed at London for William Leake, dwel- | liug in Paules Churchyard at the signe of | the Greyhound. 1599. This edition was not known until 1867, when a copy of it was discovered at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire by Mr. Charley Edmonds, who issued a fac-simile reprint of it in 1870. Of course it is not included in the collation of the Cambridge ed., which was published before the discovery ;* but it was evidently printed from the 3d edition. Mr. Ed- monds says : " A few corrections are introduced, but they bear no proportion to the misprints." Of the fifth edition a single copy is in existence (in the Bodleian Library), lacking the title-page, which has been restored in manuscript with the following imprint: "Lon- don I Printed by I. H. | for lohn Harrison | 1600." The date may be right, but, according to Halliwell t and Edmonds, the publisher's name must be wrong, as Harrison had as- signed the copyright to Leake four years previous. The Cambridge editors assumed in 1866 that this edition (the 4th of their numbering) was printed from that of 1596 ; but it is certain, since the discovery of the 1599 ed., that it must have been based on that. Of the text they say: "It * It is omitted by Hudson in his " Harvard " ed. (see account of early eds. of K and A, vol. xix. p. 279), published in 1881. t Outlines qfthe Life 0/ Shakespeare (2d ed. 1882), p. 222. IN TROD UCTION 1 1 contains many erroneous readings, due, it would seem, partly to carelessness and partly to wilful alteration, which were repeated in later eds/' Two new editions were issued in 1602, and others in 1617 and 1620. In 1627, an edition (of which the only known copy is in the British Museum) was published in Edinburgh. In the Bodleian Library there is a unique copy of an edi- tion wanting the title-page but catalogued with the date 1630; also a copy of another edition, published in 1630 (discovered since the Cambridge ed. appeared).* A thir- teenth edition was printed in 1636, "to be sold by Francis Coules in the Old Baily without Newgate." The first edition of Lucrece was published in quarto in 1594, with the following title-page: LVCRECE. I London. | Printed by Richard Field, for lohn Harrison, and are | to be sold at the signe of the white Greyhound in Paules Churh-yard. 1594. The running title is "The Rape of Lvcrece." The Bod- leian Library has two copies of this edition which differ in some important readings, indicating that it was corrected while passing through the press, t A second edition appeared in 1598, a third in i6oo, and a fourth in 1607, all in octavo and all "for lohn Harrison " (or " Harison "). In 161 6, the year of Shakespeare's death, the poem was reprinted with his name as "newly revised;" but "as the readings are generally inferior to those of the earlier edi- tions, there is no reason for attaching any importance to an assertion which was merely intended to allure purchas- ers " (Camb. ed.). The title-page of this edition reads thus : * Bibliographical Conirilnttions^ edited by J. Winsor, Librarian of Har- vard University : No. 2. Shakespeare's Poems (1879). This Bibliography of the earlier editions of the Poems contains much valuable and curious information concerning their history, the extant copies, reprints, etc. t On variations of this kind in the early editions, cf. The Two Noble Kinsmen^ p. 10. 12 SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. THE I RAPE I Of I LVCRECE, | By | M' William Shakespeare, \ Newly Reuised. | LONDON : | Printed by T, S. for Ro^er Jackson^ and are | to be solde at his shop neere the Conduit | in Fleet-street. 1616. A sixth edition, also printed for Jackson, was issued in 1624. The fifth and sixth editions differ considerably in their readings from the first four, in which there are no important variations. A Lover's Complaint was first printed, so far as we know, in the first edition of the Sonnets^ which appeared in 1609. The Passionate Pilgrim was first published in 1599, with the following title-page : THE I PASSIONATE | Pilgrime. | By W. Shakespeare. I AT LONDON \ Printed for W. laggard, and are | to be sold by W. Leake, at the Grey- | hound in Paules Church- yard. I 1599. In the middle of sheet C is a second title : SONNETS I To sundry notes of Musicke. | AT LON- DON I Printed for W. laggard, and are | to be sold by W. Leake, at the Grey- | hound in Paules Churchyard. The book was reprinted in 16 12, together with some po- ems by Thomas Heywood, the whole being attributed to Shakespeare. The title at first stood thus : THE I PASSIONATE | PILGRIME. | or | Certaine Amorous Sonnets^ \ betweene Venus and Adonis, | newly corrected and aug' \ men ted. | By W, Shakespere, | The third Edition. | Whereunto is newly ad- | ded two Loue-Epistles, the first | from Paris to ILellen, and | Hellens answere backe | againe to Paris. \ Printed by W. laggard. | 16 12. The Bodleian copy of this edition contains the following note by Malone; "All the poems from Sig. D. 5 were writ- ten, by Thomas Heywood, who was so offended at Jaggard INTRODUCTION, 13 for printing them under the name of Shakespeare that he has added a postscript to his Apology for Actors^ 4to, 161 2, on this subject ; and Jaggard in consequence of it appears to have printed a new title-page to please Heywood, with- out the name of Shakespeare in it. The former title-page was no doubt intended to be cancelled, but by some inad- vertence they were both prefixed to this copy and I have retained them as a curiosity." The corrected title-page is, except in the use of Italic and Roman letters, the same as above, omitting " By W, Shake- It will be observed that this is called the third edition ; but no other between 1599 and 161 2 is known to exist. In 1640 a number of the Sonnets^ some of the poems from The Passionate Pilgrim^ and A Lover's Complaint^ together with some translations from Ovid and other pieces evidently not by Shakespeare, were published in a volume with the following title : POEMS : I Written [ by | Wil. Shake-speare. | Gent. | Printed at London by 2ho. Cotes, and are | to be sold by John Benson^ dwelling in | S\ Dunstans Church-yard. 1640. The first complete edition of Shakespeare's Poems, in- cluding the Sonnets, was issued (according to Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual) in 1709, with the following title : A Collection of Poems, in Two Volumes ; Being all the Miscellanies of Mr. William Shakespeare, which were Pub- lished by himself in the Year 1609, and now correctly Print- ed from those Editions. The First Volume contains, I. Ve- nus AND Adonis. II. The Rape of Lucrece. III. The Passionate Pilgrim. IV. Some Sonnets set to sundry Notes of Musick^ The Second Volume contains One Hundred and Fifty Four Sonnets, all of them in Praise of his Mistress. II. A Lover's Complaint of his Angry Mistress. - LONDON: Printed for Bernard Lintott, at the Cross-Keys, between the Two Temple-Gates in Fleet-street. 14 SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. The Ph(znix and the Turtle first appeared, with Shake- speare's name appended to it, in Robert Chester's Loves Martyr: or Rosalins Complaint^ published in 1601 (reprint- ed by the New Shakspere Society in 1878). The earliest reference to the Venus and Adonis that has been found is in the famous passage in Meres's Palladis Tamia (see M. N, D, p. 9, and C, of E, p. loi). As to the date of its composition, Dowden says {Primer, p. 81) : "When Venus and Adonis appeared, Shakspere was twenty-nine years of age ; the Earl of Southampton, to whom it was dedicated, was not yet twenty. In the dedication the poet speaks of these 'unpolisht lines' as 'the first heire of my invention.' Did Shakspere mean by this that Venus and Adonis was writ- ten before any of his plays, or before any plays that were strictly original — his own * invention ?' or does he, setting plays altogether apart, which were not looked upon as liter- ature, in a high sense of the word, call it his first poem be- cause he had written no earlier narrative or lyrical verse ? We cannot be sure. It is possible, but not likely, that he may have written this poem before he left Stratford, and have brought it up with him to London. More probably it was written in London, and perhaps not long before its pub- lication. The year 1593, in which the poem appeared, was a year of plague ; the London theatres were closed : it may be that Shakspere, idle in London, or having returned for a while to Stratford, then wrote the poem." Even if begun some years earlier, it was probably revised not long before its publication. . The Lucrece was not improbably the "graver labour" promised in the dedication of the Venus and Adonis ; and, as Dowden remarks, it "exhibits far less immaturity than does the * first heire ' of Shakspere's invention." It is less likely than that, we thinlc, to have been a youthful produc- tion taken up and elaborated at a later date. A Lover'' s Complaint was evidently written long after the INTRODUCTIOiV, 15 Lucrece, but we have no means of fixing the time with any precision. The Shakespearian poems in The Passionate Pilgrim were of course written before 1599, when the collection was pub- lished. The three taken from Lovers Labour V Lost must be as early as the date of that play (see our ed. p. 10). If the Venus and Adonis sonnets are Shakespeare^ they may have been experiments on the subject before writing the long poem ; but Furnivall says that they are " so much easier in flow and lighter in handling" that he cannot suppose them to be earlier than the poem. The Phoenix and the Turtle is of doubtful authorship, and the date is equally uncertain. II. THE SOURCES OF THE POEMS. The story of the Venus and Adonis was doubtless taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses^ which had been translated by Golding in 1567. Shakespeare was probably acquainted with this translation at the time of the composition of The Tempest (see our ed. p. 139, note on Ye elves ^ etc.) ; but we have no clear evidence that he made use of it in writing Venus and Adonis, He does not follow Ovid very closely. That poet " relates, shortly, that Venus, accidentally wound- ed by an arrow of Cupid's, falls in love with the beauteous Adonis, leaves her favourite haunts and the skies for him, and follows him in his huntings over mountains and bushy rocks, and through woods. She warns him against wild boars and lions. She and he lie down in the shade on the grass — he without pressure on her part ; and there, with her bosom on his, she tells him, with kisses,* the story of how she helped Hippomenes to win the swift-fooled Atalanta, and then, because he was ungrateful to her (Venus), she excited him ancfliis wife to defile a sanctuary by a forbidden * " And, in her tale, she bussed him among." — A. Golding. Ovid's MeU, leaf 129 bk., ed. 1602. 1 6 SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. act, for which they were both turned into lions. With a final warning against wild beasts, Venus leaves Adonis. He then hunts a boar, and gets his death-wound from it Venus comes down to see him die, and turns his blood into a flow- er — the anemoneyOX wind-flower, short-lived, because the winds (anemot)^ which give it its name, beat it down,* so slender is it. Other authors give Venus the enjoyment which Ovid and Shakspere deny her, and bring Adonis back from Hades to be with her " (Furnivall). The main incidents of the Lucrece were doubtless familiar to Shakespeare from his school-days ; and they had been used again and again in poetry and prose. " Chaucer had, in his Legende of Good Women (a.d. 1386 ?), told the story of Lu- crece, after those of Cleopatra, Dido, Thisbe, Ypsiphile, and Medea, * As saythe Ovyde and Titus Ly vyus ' (Ovid's Fasti, bk. ii. 741 ; Livy^ bk. i. ch. 57, 58): the story is also told by Dionysius Halicarnassensis, bk. iv. ch. 72, and by Dio- dorus Siculus, Dio Cassius, and Valerius Maximus. In Eng- lish it is besides in Lydgate's Failes of Princes, bk. iii. ch. 5, and in Wm. Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1567, vol. i. fol. 5-7, where the story is very shortly told : the heading is * Sextus Tarquinius ravisheth Lucrece, who bewailyng the losse of her chastitie, killeth her self I cannot find the story in^he Rouen edition, 1603, of Boaistuau and Belleforest's Histoires Tragigues, 7 vols. i2mo; or the Lucca edition, 1554, of the Novelle of Bandello, 3 parts; or the Lyons edition, 1573, of the Fourth Part. Painter's short Lucrece must have been taken by himself from one of the Latin authors he cites as his originals at the end of his preface. In 1568, was entered on the Stat. Reg. A, If. 174, a receipt for 4^. from Jn. Aide * for his lycense for pry n ting of a ballett, the grevious com- playnt of Lucrece^ (Arber's Transcript, i. 370) ; and in 1570 the like from * James Robertes, for his lycense for the prynt- * Pliny (bk. i. c. 23) says it never opens but when the wind is blow- ing. V, INTRODUCTION. jj inge of a ballett intituled TAe Death of Lucryssia ' (Arber's Transcript^ i. 416). Another ballad of the legend of Lu- crece was also printed in 1576, says Warton. (Var, Shak- speare^ xx. 100.) Chaucer's simple, short telling of the story in 206 lines — of which 95 are taken up with the visit of Collatyne and Tarquynyus to Rome, before Shakspere's start with Tarquin's journey thither alone — cannot of course compare with Shakspere's rich and elaborate poem of 1855 lines, though, had the latter had more of the ear- lier maker's brevity, it would have attained greater fame " (Furnivall). III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE POEMS. [From Knighfs ''Pictorial Shakspere,'' *^ "If the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather." These are the words which, in relation to the Venus and Adonis^ Shakspere ad- dressed, in 1593, to the Earl of Southampton. Are we to accept them literally? Was the Venus and Adonis the first production of Shakspere's imagination ? Or did he put out of his view those dramatic performances which he had then unquestionably produced, in deference to the critical opin- ions which regarded plays as works not belonging to " inven- tion " ? We think that he used the words in a literal sense. We regard the Venus and Adonis as the production of a very young man, improved, perhaps, considerably in the interval between its first composition and its publication, but distin- guished by peculiarities which belong to the wild luxuriance of youthful power, — such power, however, as few besides Shakspere have ever possessed. A deep thinker and eloquent writer, Julius Charles Hare, thus describes "the spirit of self-sacrifice," as applied to poetry : . " The might of the imagination is manifested by its launch- * Vol. ii. of TragedieSy etc, p. 509 foL B 1 8 SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. ing forth from the petty creek, where the accidents of birth moored it, into the wide ocean of being, — by its going abroad into the world around, passing into whatever it meets with, animating it, and becoming one with it. This complete union and identification of the poet with his poem, — this suppres- sion of his own individual insulated consciousness, with its narrowness of thought and pettiness of feeling, — is what we admire in the great masters of that which for this reason we justly call classical poetry, as representing that which is symbolical and universal, not that which is merely occasional and peculiar. This gives them that majestic calmness which still breathes upon us from the statues of their gods. This invests their works with that lucid transparent atmosphere wherein every form stands out in perfect definiteness and distinctness, only beautified by the distance which idealizes it. This has delivered those works from the casualties of time and space, and has lifted them up like stars into the pure firmament of thought, so that they do not shine on one spot alone, nor fade like earthly flowers, but journey on from clime to clime, shedding the light of beauty on genera- tion after generation. The same quality, amounting to a to- tal extinction of his own selfish being, so that his spirit be- came a mighty organ through which Nature gave utterance to the full diapason of her notes, is what we wonder at in our own great dramatist, and is the groundwork of all his other powers : for it is only when purged of selfishness that the intellect becomes fitted for receiving the inspirations of genius."* What Mr. Hare so justly considers as the great moving principle of "classical poetry," — what he further notes as the pre-eminent characteristic of "our own great drama- tist," — is abundantly found in that great dramatist's earliest work. Coleridge was the first to point out this pervading * The Victory of Faith ; and other Sermons^ by Julius Charles Hare, M.A. (1840), p. 277. INTRODUCTION, 19 quality in the Venus and Adonis ; and he has done this so admirably that it would be profanation were we to attempt to elucidate the point in any other than his own words ; " It is throughout as if a superior spirit, more intuitive, more intimately conscious, even than the characters them- selves, not only of every outward look and act, but of the flux and reflux of the mind in all its subtlest thoughts and feelings, were placing the whole before our view; himself meanwhile unparticipating in the passions, and actuated only by that pleasurable excitement which had resulted from the energetic fervour of his own spirit in so vividly exhibit- ing what it had so accurately and profoundly contemplated. I think I should have conjectured from these poems that even then the great instinct which impelled the poet to the drama was secretly working in him, prompting him by a se- ries and never-broken chain of imagery, always vivid, and, because unbroken, often minute — by the highest effort of the picturesque in words of which words are capable, higher perhaps than was ever realized by any other poet, even Dante not excepted — to provide a substitute for that visual language, that constant intervention and running comment by tone, look, and gesture, which in his dramatic works he was entitled to expect from the players. His Venus and Adonis seem at once the characters themselves, and the whole representation of those characters by the most con- summate actors. You seem to be told nothing, but to see and hear everything. Hence it is, that, from the perpetual activity of attention required on the part of the reader, — from the rapid flow, the quick change, and the playful nature of the thoughts and images, — and, above all, from the alien- ation, and, if I may hazard such an expression, the utter aloofness of the poet's own feelings from those of which he is at once the painter and the analyst, — that though the very subject cannot but detract from the pleasure of a delicate 20 SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. mind, yet never was poem less dangerous on a moral ac- count." * Coleridge, in the preceding chapter of his Literary LifCy says : " During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry — the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination." In Coleridge's Lit- erary Remains the Venus and Adonis is cited as furnishing a signal example of '^that affectionate love of nature and natural objects, without which no man could have observed so steadily, or painted so truly and passionately, the very minutest beauties of the external world." The description of the hare-hunt is there given at length as a specimen of this power. A remarkable proof of the completeness as well as accuracy of Shakspere's description lately presented itself to our mind, in running through a littl^ volume, full of tal- ent, published in 1825 — Essays and Sketches of Character^ by the late Richard Ayton, Esq. There is a paper on hunting, and especially on hare-hunting. He says : " I am not one of the perfect fox-hunters of these realms ; but having been in the way of late of seeing a good deal of various modes of hunting, I would, for the benefit of the uninitiated, set down the results of my observations." In this matter he writes with a perfect unconsciousness that he is describing what any one has described before ; but as accurate an observer had been before him : " She (the hare) generally returns to the seat from which she was put up, running, as all the world knows, in a circle, or something sometimes like it, we had better say, that we may keep on good terms with the mathematical. At start- ing, she tears away at her utmost speed for a mile or more, and distances the dogs half-way : she then returns, diverging * Biogj'aphia Literaria, 1 81 7, vol. ii. p. 15. INTRODUCTION, 2 1 a little to the right or left, that she may not run into the mouths of her enemies — a necessity which accounts for what we call the circularity of her course. Her flight from home is direct and precipitate ; but on her way back, when she has gained a little time for consideration and strata- gem, she describes a curious labyrinth of short turnings and windings, as if to perplex the dogs by the intricacy of her track." Compare this with Shakspere : " And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles. How he outruns the wind, and with what care He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles : The many musits through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes." Mr. Ayton thus goes on : " The hounds, whom we left in full cry, continue their mu- sic without remission as long as they are faithful to the scent ; as a summons, it should seem, like the seaman's cry, to pull together, or keep together, and it is a certain proof to them- selves and their followers that they are in the right way. On the instant that they are *at fault,' or lose the scent, they are silent. . . . The weather, in its impression on the scent, is the great father of * faults ;' but they may arise from other accidents, even when the day is in every respect favourable. The intervention of ploughed land, on which the scent soon cools or evaporates, is at least perilous; but sheep-stains, recently left by a flock, are fatal : they cut ofl" the scent irre- coverably — making a gap, as it were, in the clue, in which the dogs have not even a hint for their guidance." Compare Shakspere again :